Creating the Causes of Happiness

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Peb 2015 · Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

Tungkol sa ebook na ito

This is the second volume in a new series of Lama Zopa Rinpoche's teachings given during the 24th Kopan lam-rim course in 1991. The series will consist of four volumes of lightly edited transcripts that we hope will convey the feeling of being in Nepal for the one-month Kopan course. The first volume, Practicing the Unmistaken Path, covers topics such as compassion and universal responsibility, the benefits of developing bodhicitta, the disadvantages of self-cherishing, and emptiness. This second volume, Creating the Causes of Happiness, covers topics such as the nature of the mind, karma, death, reincarnation and emptiness. 

This book is made possible by kind supporters of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive who, like you, appreciate how we make these teachings available in so many ways, including in our website for instant reading, listening or downloading, and as printed and electronic books. Our website offers immediate access to thousands of pages of teachings and hundreds of audio recordings by some of the greatest lamas of our time. Our photo gallery and our ever-popular books are also freely accessible there. Please help us increase our efforts to spread the Dharma for the happiness and benefit of all beings. You can find out more about becoming a supporter of the Archive and see all we have to offer by visiting our website. Thank you so much, and please enjoy this e-book.

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Lama Zopa Rinpoche was born in Thami, Nepal, in 1946. At the age of three he was recognized as the reincarnation of Sherpa Nyingma yogi, Kunsang Yeshe, the Lawudo Lama. Rinpoche’s Thami home was not far from the Lawudo cave, in the Mount Everest region of Nepal, where his predecessor meditated for the last twenty years of his life. Rinpoche’s own description of his early years may be found in his book, The Door to Satisfaction (Wisdom Publications). At the age of ten, Rinpoche went to Tibet and studied and meditated at Domo Geshe Rinpoche’s monastery near Pagri, until the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959 forced him to forsake Tibet for the safety of Bhutan.

Rinpoche then went to the Tibetan refugee camp at Buxa Duar, West Bengal, India, where he met Lama Yeshe, who became his closest teacher. The Lamas went to Nepal in 1967, and over the next few years built Kopan and Lawudo Monasteries. In 1971 Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the first of his famous annual lam-rim retreat courses, which continue at Kopan to this day.

In 1974, with Lama Yeshe, Rinpoche began traveling the world to teach and establish centers of Dharma. When Lama Yeshe passed away in 1984, Rinpoche took over as spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), which has continued to flourish under his peerless leadership. More details of Rinpoche’s life and work may be found on the FPMT Web site.